


Linens (from the bottom drawer)

by Zingiber



Series: Five and One [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst and Humor, Attempted Sexual Assault, Fluff, M/M, Marriage, Non-Explicit Sex, Romance, Story: The Adventure of the Norwood Builder, Story: The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist, now with more tropes than ever before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 06:12:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15943418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zingiber/pseuds/Zingiber
Summary: Sequel to Lozenges.  Five times Sherlock calls John his husband and one time John calls Sherlock his.





	Linens (from the bottom drawer)

**Author's Note:**

> This is un-Betaed and un-Britpicked. If you see any errors, please let me know so I can correct them. 
> 
> Please see the end of the chapter for additional warnings and notes. 
> 
> This is a sequel to Lozenges. It is not strictly necessary for you to read Lozenges to understand this, but it is important to know that this story diverges from the canon after s3 (in short, s4 did not happen).

1.

They are married on a cold, dreary Saturday at the end of January.

The reception is modest affair, intimate and close.  After the debacle at John’s first wedding, they agreed it would be wise to keep the guest list short.  Friends and family only, and a staff thoroughly vetted by Mycroft.  Everything is neatly ordered.  Everything is _safe._

In any other situation, Sherlock would be ripping his hair out at the roots. But now – now, he cannot fathom boredom. He is enraptured by the man in his arms, guiding him around the dance floor with the ease of long practice. Practice that Sherlock gave him, years ago, ensconced in 221B with the curtains closed against prying eyes. 

The thought needles pain into his heart.  His elation wanes, just for an instant.  His smile falters. 

John notices, of course.  After over a decade of knowing each other ( _seven years as flatmates and friends, three years as a couple, and an agonizing four months, two weeks, and three days of engagement_ ), John is as finely tuned to Sherlock’s emotions as a spider is to the vibrations in its web.  The faintest tremor is enough to tip him off.

The hand leading Sherlock gives a little squeeze.  “What is it?”

Sherlock anchors himself to the pressure of their joined hands. “Nothing.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

John studies him through narrowed eyes.  He knows Sherlock is hiding something, but he hasn’t worked out _what,_ and he knows when to pry and when to let a matter lie. 

 “Okay,” says John.  Just like that, the matter is closed.

Except it isn’t, not really, because John takes an extra step to the left. Sherlock follows, compelled by years of practicing on his own and the precious handful of nights he spent teaching John to do just this.  John’s hand slips from his to rest behind his shoulder, his other hand moving to the small of his back.  Sherlock falls into a dip, caught by gravity.  Reclaimed by his husband’s arms. 

And then John is leaning close and kissing him – soft, lingering.  A smattering applause and cheers ring from the gusts around them. 

Sherlock closes his eyes and surrenders to the kiss.  To the gentle pressure of John’s lips on his, so familiar and still so exhilarating.  To the strength of his arms.  To the scent of him, masked by cologne – citrus and bergamot, and beneath that, a scent Sherlock knows so well, his mind simply translates it to _warmth_ and _comfort._   To _home._

The needle burrows deeper, lancing through his reverie.  A memory surfaces:  John taking an extra step to the left, leading Mary into a dip. Smiling as he leans down to kiss her.

John draws back with a sharp breath.  Sherlock opens his eyes, finds John staring down at him.  Sorrow is etched into the careworn lines of his face.

“Oh, Sherlock,” he says.  “Oh, love. I’m sorry.”

Sherlock shakes his head, excuses filling his mouth.  _Don’t bother.  I’m being ridiculous, really.  Maudlin.  Today is a good day – possibly the best of my life – and here I am, being weepy.  Well done, Sherlock.  Barely two hours of marriage and already you’re cocking things up._

John pulls him to his feet.  His hands move to Sherlock’s chest, fingers splayed over his thundering heart. “Sherlock.”

Sherlock says, “Kiss me again.”

John does.

- 

Sometime between the first dance and the end of dinner, Sherlock gets pleasantly drunk. 

The head table is far enough away from the others and the guests are so immersed in their own dinners that Sherlock is perfectly at ease insinuating his hand under the table.  He molds his palm to John’s thigh, relishes the feel of muscles bunching beneath wool. 

John, to his credit, does not let his placid smile waver.  In fact, if not for the tell-tale twitch of his jaw – _masseter muscle –_ Sherlock might wonder if he had imagined putting his hand on John’s thigh at all.  But that twitch reassures him.  Makes him bold.  He slides his palm up, little finger worrying at the inseam of John’s trousers. 

John’s smile tightens a fraction.  “Whatever are you doing, Mr. Watson-Holmes?”

Sherlock doesn’t care one whit about the guests.  He leans close, breathing in the scent of citrus and bergamot and _home._   “Let’s go.”

John looks at him then, eyebrows raised in a sham of puzzlement. “Go?  Go where?”

“A locked room.  One of this place’s posh toilets.  A bloody _broom cupboard._ I don’t care, so long as I can…”

His voice trails off as his hand moves closer, closer.  John hisses between his teeth and drops a hand under the table to grip Sherlock’s, hips rocking forward.  Sherlock is giddily pleased that they chose long tablecloths for the reception. 

“I think,” says John, breathy, “we should stay.  Can’t be… can’t be rude.  To our guests.”

“I don’t care about the guests.”  Sherlock leans closer still, drops his voice to a timbre that has coaxed John into bed countless times before.  “I care about getting you on your own.  Getting you out of those trousers.”

John huffs, cheeks pink.  “You are insatiable, you know.  Ridiculous.”

Another memory swims up from the deep, surfacing through the warm haze.  _John, I am a ridiculous man, redeemed only by the warmth and constancy of your friendship._

“Later, all right?”  John peels his hand away.  “Greg will be starting the toasts soon.  I’d rather not risk standing and giving our guests an eyeful.”

Sherlock nods and sets his hands on the table.  He stares at the ring on his finger – plain but elegant, platinum for strength and permanence.  It has yet to feel normal, like an extension of himself. 

“Sherlock?”

He looks at John, sees the same sadness he’d glimpsed during their dance. His fingers shake as he reaches for his wine glass.  Blackberry and roasted oak smolder down his throat. 

An electrical pop cuts through the chatter and clatter of cutlery.  Sherlock and John look up in unison.  Lestrade stands, fiddles with his microphone. 

“Now that we’re all well on our way to pissed,” he says, “I’d like to make a toast.”

- 

It’s a marvel, really, that anyone can muster the energy to consummate a marriage after slogging through the tedium and toil of a wedding reception. 

After veritable eons (which John later insists was only a total of four hours), the last well-wishers totter out, faces ruddy from drinking.  The staff moves in to begin cleaning.  Lights are switched on, dispelling the dusky romance with their buttery glow. 

Sherlock and John walk outside to the waiting car, hand-in-hand.  John holds open the door and helps Sherlock in with great care, as if handling something as frail as gossamer.  He follows Sherlock in and closes the door. Sherlock lists into him, eyelids drooping.

“Should’ve taken you up on your earlier offer, I expect,” says John. 

Sherlock gives a jaw-creaking yawn.  “Should always listen to me,” he mumbles. 

John laughs and presses a kiss into his hair.  “I should, shouldn’t I.  You are a genius, after all.”

“A mad genius.”

“Well.  Yes, somewhat.”  John lets his head rest atop Sherlock’s.  “My mad genius.”

John winds an arm around Sherlock’s shoulders and pulls him closer.  Sherlock sighs as the last of the January chill evaporates from his bones and warmth bleeds between their bodies.  Closing his eyes, he listens to the soothing drum of John’s heartbeat, the patter of sleet on the car roof.

“D’you wish we had chosen a different time?” he asks.

John’s fingers climb his shoulder to rub at the knob of his clavicle. “No.  No, this was perfect.”

“Mrs. Hudson kept complaining about the cold.”

“Mrs. Hudson wasn’t the one getting married.”

“I only mean…”

“Sherlock.”  John’s voice fans into his hair.  “Today was perfect.  I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

Sherlock lapses into silence.  He had been the one to suggest a winter wedding, and though John had agreed without question, he must have had an inkling.  Sherlock’s reasons had been pitifully transparent.  The first, of course, being that he and John had met on January thirty-first.  It seemed only fitting that they be wed on the anniversary of that day – a day of life-changing promise.  If Sherlock were the fanciful sort, he might call such a day _fateful._  

The second reason is that John and Mary were married in the summer. Sherlock keeps that reason hidden away in his Mind Palace, behind the walls of a glass greenhouse.  A golden summer day.

John’s fingers thread idly through his hair.  “Besides,” he says, “if it hadn’t been so slippery, we wouldn’t’ve had the pleasure of seeing Mycroft fall on his arse.”

Sherlock laughs, startled – a snort that drops into a belly-deep guffaw. John is pulled into the riptide with him, and in no time at all they are giggling like schoolboys, tipping into outright hysterics. 

“Stop, stop,” John pleads.

“Do you remember his face?” Sherlock wheezes.  “He looked…”

“Oh, God, didn’t he…”

“Like a startled penguin…”

John claps a hand over his mouth to stifle his giggles.  Tears gather in the corners of his eyes, glinting in the smeared glow of passing streetlamps.  “Stop it, stop.  We can’t giggle.  We’ve just got married.”

Sherlock pulls him into a kiss, laughs in the spaces of stolen breaths. 

The car stops at the stoop of 221 and they disembark.  Sleet pelts down as the tail-lights round a corner and vanish. Sherlock shivers.  John, fiddling with the lock, curses under his breath. The bolt slides free and they step inside.

They stand at the bottom of the landing, gazes meeting as though magnetized. A wide smile stretches across John’s face.  It’s infectious, and Sherlock finds himself grinning, too.

“So,” says John.

“So.”

“We’re married.  This will be the first time we go into our home as husbands.”

“If you’re suggesting that you carry me over the threshold, I—”

“No—”  John pauses, considers.  “Not in my state, anyway.  Still a little fuzzy.”

“I would rather you didn’t break yourself with ridiculous marriage traditions.” Sherlock takes John’s hand.  “Come on, John.  Bed.”

“Hmm, yes.”  John rubs at the weariness around his eyes.  “That sounds… perfect, actually.”

Hand-in-hand, they climb the stairs.  They shut the door behind them, lock it.  They kick off their shoes and cross the flat with quiet, sock-clad steps.

Sherlock is taken aback by how _ordinary_ everything feels.  There is no monumental shift in his perspective, no sense of being out of place. It is simply him and John, walking to their bedroom as they have countless times before.  Even the weight of the ring on his finger seems to lessen. 

The bedroom door snicks shut behind them.  John loosens his tie, tugs it off.  “Going to wash up.  You coming?”

Sherlock merely grunts; the sight of the bed is too tantalizing to be usurped by something as silly as speech.  He mirrors John, removing his tie and tossing it to the floor.  He sets to the buttons of his shirt with muzzy, single-minded focus. 

By the time he is stripped bare, John has gone into the loo.  Water burbles down the drain as he brushes his teeth, spits.  The familiar sounds soothe Sherlock like a lullaby as he climbs into bed and curls up beneath the covers.  John humming absentmindedly, a little off-key.  The rustle of clothes coming off.  The squeak of old pipes and the rumbling spray of the shower. 

They are more than a lullaby, Sherlock thinks.  They are notes in a great symphony, one he wants to play for the rest of his life.

He is woken from his dozing by the dip of the mattress as John climbs into bed. He lifts the duvet in silent welcome. John huddles close, clad in a t-shirt and boxers, warm and damp from the shower.  Sherlock noses blindly at the crook of his neck.

“This is different, you know,” John mumbles.  “Just so we’re clear.”

“What is?”

“All of it.”  His arms twine around Sherlock, words reverberating through the bars of their snug ribs to echo in Sherlock’s heart.  “You and me.  It’s nothing like it was with… like it was the first time.”

It’s a deliberate avoidance, like skirting a steep, deadly precipice. Dread twists in Sherlock’s belly. “I know.”

“I know you know,” says John.  “Only… from now on, I only want to think of us.  Yeah?  I know there will be times when… when I can’t help.  Remembering.  But I’m going to try to focus on our future.”

“Us.”

“Yes.”  A kiss, smudged at the corner of Sherlock’s mouth.  “From now on, everything we do is about you and me.”

The twist in Sherlock’s belly loosens.  “John.”

“Yeah?”

“I do love you.”

“I love you too.”  Another kiss, this one on his lips.  Sherlock melts into it, kissing with as much fervor as his overtaxed mind and body can give. They part, and John says, “Go to sleep, love.”

Sherlock does.

- 

Some time later, Sherlock wakes.  He is lying on his side, molded to the curve of John’s back.  One of his arms drapes over John’s side, fingers unconsciously questing under the hem of that ratty old t-shirt. 

Sherlock shifts closer and noses at the nape of John’s neck.  The smell of sweat is faint, masked by traces of cologne and the lilac body wash John swears reduces stress.  He presses his lips to a jut of vertebrae – _C5 –_ and tastes salt.  Yearning thumps through his veins, as languid and sweet as sun-warmed honey. He presses his hips forward with a sigh. 

John suddenly tenses, gasps.  He reaches back, hand curling around Sherlock’s hip.  At the first insistent tug, Sherlock falls into a faltering rhythm, each thrust marked by a panting breath. 

“Can… can I…”

“Yeah.”  John’s breathing is just as irregular as Sherlock’s.  “Christ, yes, Sherlock… hurry…”

They move quickly, fumbling through the lingering haze of sleep.  Sherlock kicks away the duvet as John rummages through the nightstand drawer, passes him the tube.  Between the two of them, they manage to ruck up John’s t-shirt and tug the boxers down to his thighs.  John shudders and curses under his breath as Sherlock readies him.  When he’s had enough, he pushes his hips back in wordless entreaty.  They move together; slowly, at first, and then faster, the lazy warmth catching fire and rising into a scorching conflagration.  Sherlock’s fingers bite bruises into John’s hips as he drives forward, stiffens.  Cries out.

“Sherlock,” John is saying.  “Sherlock, I need…”

Sherlock pries his fingers from John’s hip and reaches down between his legs. John makes a sound someplace between a whimper and a moan.  Sherlock takes his time, winding him tighter, tighter.  John’s body is as taut as a bowstring when he comes at last, eyes screwed shut and brow sheened with sweat. 

Later, they huddle beneath the duvet, clean and warm and still a little drunk on endorphins.  John lays his fingers across Sherlock’s collarbone and smiles. 

“Good morning, love,” he says.

Sherlock catches John’s fingers in his own, kisses each one in turn.  “Good morning.  Husband.” 

2. 

Sherlock will never tire of calling John his husband.

“’Old still,” the thug says.  The switchblade in his hand gleams with menace.  “Or I’ll gut you.  Got it?”

Sherlock, backed up against a brick wall, rolls his eyes.  It’s a pity that London’s criminals have devolved to this state: the cardboard clichés of bad crime novels.  It almost makes him wish Moriarty were still kicking.  At least he had been _fun._  

“You’re working for Wilkinson,” Sherlock says.  “Still printing bills, then?”

The thug narrows his small, piggish eyes.  Sherlock mentally dubs him _Piggy._

“I said shut up,” Piggy snarls.

“No-o,” Sherlock drawls.  “You said to _‘old still.’_  You never said anything about shutting up.”

“Ha!”  Several yards away, standing at the mouth of the alleyway, Piggy’s partner crows.  A scrawny, sallow man with a bulbous head, he has earned the moniker _Cotton Bud._   “He’s got a point!”

“Fuck off!”  Piggy glares at Sherlock.  “An’ if you don’t shut up, I’ll cut your tongue out!”

Sherlock rolls his eyes again.  In the back of his mind, Mummy’s voice admonishes him:  _Keep that up, William, and your eyes will get stuck that way._

“What’s next?” he asks.  “More cinderblocks for shoes?  Me sleeping with the fishes?  Although I must admit, that tactic worked out quite well for me.  In the long run.”

Piggy’s glare morphs into befuddlement.  “Wot’s that mean?”

“I owe Wilkinson a debt of gratitude,” says Sherlock. 

“Wot—”

“Sherlock?”  John’s voice rings through the air.  “You there?”

“Here, John,” Sherlock calls.

“I said to shut up!” Piggy snaps.

John emerges from the mouth of the alleyway and steps into Cotton Bud’s path. He studies the thug for a moment, dismisses him, and flashes a radiant smile at Sherlock.  “Hello, gorgeous.”

Piggy gapes at John.  “Wot the fuck?”

“Not you,” says John.  “Sorry.”

“That’s my husband,” Sherlock informs Piggy.  “He’s a doctor.  And he was in the army.  Quite adept at breaking bones.”

“A couple of poofs?” Cotton Bud snickers.  He slides a hand into his pocket and draws out his own switchblade. “Fuck off.”

John’s smile vanishes.  His arm snaps out, fingers closing around the wrist of Cotton Bud’s knife hand.  The thug flinches as John crowds into his space, slamming a heel down on his toes.  Sherlock can swear he hears something crack, and then all he can hear is Cotton Bud howling as he crumples to the ground.  John kneels, drives his kneecap into the hollow of Cotton Bud’s ribs.  He twists the thug’s wrist and the blade tumbles to the pavement with a clatter. 

“That was rude,” John says.

“Let me go, you f—”  But the rest of Cotton Bud’s insult is transformed into a shriek as John turns his wrist just-so.  John leans more of his weight on his knee and the shriek peters into a wheeze. 

“Word of advice,” he says.  “Free of charge.  You might not want to say rude things to people who have their knees on your lungs.”

Cotton Bud makes a gurgling sound, like he’s trying to breathe through a clogged straw.  Sherlock rests his back against the wall.  He’s gone weak in the knees, his pulse rocketing. 

“Oi!”  Piggy shouts, slashing his blade through the air.  “I’m the one in charge here!”

John’s gaze does not waver from Cotton Bud, but his free hand speeds to the inside pocket of his coat.  He draws the Sig and levels it at Piggy in the space of a heartbeat.

“Drop it,” John says.  “Now.”

Piggy hesitates, darting a glance at Sherlock.  John keeps his eyes fixed on Cotton Bud, but his finger tightens around the trigger as if he’s read the thug’s thoughts.  His voice is quietly menacing.  “If you so much as scratch him, I’ll put a bullet in you.”

Piggy goes very pale.  He drops the blade. 

“Grab it, Sherlock,” John orders.

A shiver skates down Sherlock’s spine as he pushes off the wall.  He fetches up the blade and waggles it at Piggy with a smirk. “Thank you.”

“Fuck off,” Piggy grumbles.

“Lestrade and the others will be along shortly,” says John.  He rises, jackknifes Cotton Bud’s arm behind him in a punishing hold.  “You could have waited for me, you know.”

Guilt prickles in the pit of Sherlock’s belly.  “I didn’t want to lose them.”

John stares at him steadily and the prickle sharpens into a jab.  Sherlock knows the proper response to give, but he doesn’t know if he can give it with sincerity.  He tries anyway.  “I—I got carried away.  Apologies.”

 “Whipped,” Cotton Bud gasps.

“Nobody asked for your input.”  John twitches his wrist and Cotton Bud subsides with a wince. 

“Do you know,” says Sherlock, “we’ve come full circle?”

John raises an eyebrow.  “Oh?”

“Yes.”  Sherlock gestures at Piggy and Cotton Bud with the switchblade.  “If it weren’t for Wilkinson’s lot, we would have never sorted ourselves out.”

“What—”  Realization dawns.  John’s expression turns murderous.  “They put you in the river.”

“Not them, specifically,” says Sherlock.  Cotton Bud and Piggy may be idiots, but it would be beyond cruel to expose them to the full force of John’s righteous fury.  “But they work for the same counterfeiter.”

John’s knuckles whiten around Cotton Bud’s wrist and the thug whimpers. John looms over him and skewers him with the look of a hawk honing in on a rat.  “Is that right?”

“I-I had n-nothing to do with it!” Cotton Bud babbles.  “I swear!”

Piggy shifts from foot to foot and Sherlock rounds on him, pointing the blade at his flabby belly.  “I wouldn’t move if I were you.  My husband is a trifle annoyed right now, and when he’s annoyed, he can be… unpredictable.”

Piggy swallows and nods rapidly.  “Y-yessir.”

“Good man.”

“Sherlock?  John?” Lestrade’s voice rises above the conversation, preceding him into the alleyway.  The DI strides in, hands shoved deep in his coat pockets.  His breath trails him in a lazy plume.  “Ah.  Found Marks and Benson, have you?”

Sherlock looks at him blankly.  “I suppose.”

“Well, hand them over, whoever they are.”  Bradstreet and Donovan round the corner, handcuffs at the ready.  “Promise not to make a fuss, yeah?”

“Don’t worry,” says John.  Sherlock notes that the Sig has been stashed back in its hiding place.  John pushes Cotton Bud toward Bradstreet; the thug goes with the air of a man saved from the noose.  “Like lambs, they are.  Right?”

“Y-yes,” Cotton Bud stammers. 

“What’ve you done?” Donovan muses as she cuffs Piggy.  “He looks like he’s about to piss himself.”

Sherlock shrugs.  “Haven’t the foggiest.  Perhaps he’s afraid of the long arm of the law.”

Donovan snorts.  “I know _that’s_ crap.”

The Yard packs off Piggy and Cotton Bud without a fuss.  Sherlock knows the routine – knows he is meant to go with them, give a statement – but he lingers, gravitating toward John.  Lestrade and his entourage turn the corner and vanish, voices fading in the chill air.  Sherlock crosses the space to John in three long strides and catches him up in a kiss, fierce and feverish and just shy of bruising.  John makes a small sound of surprise and returns the kiss with enthusiasm, hands winding around Sherlock’s neck, cold fingers twining through his hair. 

He chuckles when they part.  “Well. I thought as much.”

“You… thought what?” Sherlock breathes.

“That you like being rescued.  My damsel in distress.”

Sherlock pulls back and swats John’s shoulder in mock indignation. John smirks up at him, mouth soft and kiss-reddened.  He draws Sherlock down into another kiss, this one slower, gentler.  _I’m glad you’re safe, you ridiculous man._

“Let’s go back to Baker Street,” Sherlock murmurs, after.

John sighs.  “I wish I could, really.  But I’ve got that shift at the clinic.”

“Skip it.  Tell them you’re ill.”

A snort.  “Yeah, no. I can’t afford to turn down good work when I’ve got a posh man to keep.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes and tries to coax John into a third kiss, mind already casting about for alternatives – bolt holes, someplace deserted, out of sight. But John is resolute, cold hands slipping from Sherlock’s neck.  “I really have got to go.”

Sherlock scowls.  “Fine.”

“Don’t be upset.  We’ve still got our dinner date, after all.”  John’s eyes have a wicked glint as he slides his hands into his pockets. Restraining himself.  “I’ll make it up to you then.”

“You had better.  I won’t be easily impressed, Dr. Watson-Holmes.”

“Oh, you will be.”  John steps closer, edging into Sherlock’s space.  He stops with his face tilted up, the tip of his nose just inches from Sherlock’s chin.  It would be simple, so simple, to duck his head, seal their mouths together.

John’s breath ghosts across Sherlock’s lips – a hollow echo of a kiss. His voice is low, each word leaden with dark and sinful promise.  “The plans I have for you, love.”

Without another word, John pivots and walks out of the alleyway, as easy as a man on a morning stroll.  Sherlock stands stock-still in his wake, blood pumping hot and urgent behind his ears, between his legs.

He licks his lips; they are suddenly parched.  “Right,” he says, his voice a husk.  “Yes.”

3.

Sometimes, being married to John has the illusory tinge of a dream.  They have been married for a year, and still there are times when Sherlock wakes in the night, startled, heart hammering with the dread certainty that he will find himself alone in his bed.  Alone in 221B.

He knows it’s an unfounded fear.  But that doesn’t stop it from worming into his thoughts, gnawing into his dreams like a malicious parasite. 

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Sherlock looks up from his Sanpei chicken claypot.  Across the table, John watches him with a bemused expression.  He is a breathtaking sight, clad in a navy dinner suit, a white shirt, and a paisley-pattern tie.  The suit hugs his frame, using sleek lines to translate innate confidence into pure power.  His hair is swept back in an artful style that makes Sherlock’s fingers itch to touch: to grip and muss. 

“You’re beautiful,” he blurts out.  Bites his lip.

It may be a trick of the candlelight trembling between them, but Sherlock thinks he sees John’s cheeks redden.  He ducks his head with a smile.  “Thank you, love.”

John reaches a hand across the table and laces his fingers with Sherlock’s. For a moment, they simply look at each other.

John’s smile widens.  “But if you think _I’m_ beautiful, you should see the bloke I’m married to.”

Sherlock is about to reply when a voice pierces their bubble with the cold edge of an icicle.  “Bloody hell. Is that Sherlock Holmes I see?”

Sherlock twists around in his seat to see Sebastian Wilkes standing nearby, a glamorous redhead draped across his arm.  Seb’s lip curls as he approaches with the redhead in tow.  “It is!  How long’s it been, buddy?  And…” 

His eyes rove to John and he pauses.  Sherlock realizes, with a jab of indignation, that Seb might not recognize John.  That, during their first meeting, he might have dismissed John as _unimportant._

Then his face lights with recognition.  “You’re his little pal,” he says, making no effort to cover his shock. “The… the blogger, right?  Mr. Watson?”

Despite sitting, despite being shorter than the average man, John has the uncanny ability to look down his nose at someone.  He does so now.  “Mr. Wilkes. It’s Dr. Watson-Holmes, actually.”

Seb’s jaw drops and he gives a bark of laughter.  “What, seriously?  You two?” A cruel grin stretches across his face. “I didn’t think you were fond of _friends,_ Sherlock, much less…”  He trails off, waving his hand at the air between them. 

“John is my husband,” says Sherlock.  His voice is too quiet, too timid.  Such a thing should be declared with pride, but suddenly Sherlock feels very small.  Pathetic.

Seb laughs outright at that.  “Who’d have thought!  Sherlock Holmes, married!  Miracles really _do_ happen.”

Sherlock swallows, tries to summon a reply.  Something cutting, something like acid, something that will corrode Seb’s laughter and sneers.  Nothing comes.

“Mr. Wilkes,” says John, his tone arctic, “it was a pleasure seeing you, but Sherlock and I are out for a special occasion, so if you could…”

“Oh!”  Seb looks from the candle on the table to Sherlock and John’s clasped hands, a parody of well-bred mortification.  “Of course.  _So_ sorry to disrupt your…”  Another wave. “…evening.” 

“It’s no trouble,” says John.  Only a willfully ignorant man would ignore the true sentiment in those words:  _Leave us alone._

Sebastian Wilkes is a willfully ignorant man.  He doesn’t move, but stands staring at the pair like they are a particularly interesting exhibit at the zoo.  One corner of his mouth lifts.  “I suppose you aren’t just _colleagues_ anymore, eh?”

“I suppose you’re still an arrogant twat,” says John.  “At least some things change for the better, _eh?”_

Seb’s smile vanishes, face going slack.  “What—”

“I asked you to leave.  You’re spoiling our evening.”

“You—”  Seb utters a disbelieving laugh, but his eyes are bright with fury.  “You can’t talk to me like that.”

“I can,” says John, “and I am.  And Sherlock knows the owner of this restaurant – helped him out of a tight spot. Unless you want to embarrass yourself by being thrown out, I suggest you fuck off.”

The words are delivered with ease – almost levity – but each one seems to strike Seb like a pellet of buckshot.  He steps back, lips twisting, all pretense at civility gone. 

A deduction snaps into place.  Sherlock looks at the glamorous redhead.  “He struggles with erectile dysfunction and has a recent diagnosis of HPV.  I would steer clear if I were you.”

The redhead blinks, her perfectly painted lips parting. 

“That—that isn’t—”  Seb flounders.  He takes the redhead’s shoulder.  “Let’s go talk in private, okay?”

He shoots Sherlock a poisonous look as he and the redhead turn to leave. Half-way across the room, the redhead shrugs off Seb’s hand.  Her manicured fingers move to her clutch, fiddling with the clip.  She’s going to call a friend, a cab.  Seb will be going home alone tonight.

Sherlock side-eyes John.  “That was bold of you.”

“What?” John asks, still sounding peeved.  “Telling that prick to leave?  Wasn’t bold enough, if you ask me.  I should’ve kicked his teeth in when you first introduced us.”

His words are sour with guilt.  _“I suppose you aren’t just_ colleagues  _anymore, eh?”_

Sherlock tightens his fingers around John’s, feathers the pad of his thumb over a knuckle.  “I meant the bluff, actually.  I know many people, yes, but the owner of this restaurant isn’t one of them.”

A hint of a smile breaks through John’s anger.  “Ah.  Well.” A shrug.  “I knew you’d cotton on.”

“I thought as much.”

“What?”

“That you like rescuing me.”  Sherlock leans forward, bats his eyelashes like a maiden.  “My hero.”

John’s smile is back in full force, dispelling the rage.  He leans forward and braces his elbows on the table. Wavering candlelight casts the planes of his face in gleaming gold, captures the lingering hardness in his eyes and burnishes it to a molten sheen. He is leonine – power and ferocity and calm as he basks, languid, in the warm light. 

“Let’s go home,” Sherlock says.

John chuckles.  “What, no dessert?”  Then he catches Sherlock’s look.  His cheeks go red.  “Oh.”

“Yes.”

-

Later, ensconced in 221B, they lie entwined under the blankets of their bed. John drapes along Sherlock’s back, skin-to-skin, the slowing beat of his breathing a humid tempo at Sherlock’s nape. In a few minutes, the heat of their cocoon will become stifling. 

Sherlock lets the minutes stretch.

John slides his feet forward, tangling them with Sherlock’s.  He smears a lazy, uncoordinated kiss to Sherlock’s shoulder and mumbles, “Love you.”

Sherlock shifts closer, ignores the lingering smolder of strained muscles. John’s arm tightens around his waist and he sighs.  “Happy anniversary, John.” 

4. 

The moment Violet Smith sets foot in the flat, Sherlock feels an iron band cinch tight around his heart. 

Sherlock is titrating a solution with hydrochloric acid when he hears the motorbike rumble up to 221.  He dismisses it, focuses on each hissing drip of the pipette. 

“Yoo-hoo!” Mrs. Hudson calls. “Boys, you’ve got a client.”

Sherlock lowers his pipette with care – no fume hood to speak of, _John will be irate_ – and frowns at the door. He is about to complain when Mrs. Hudson ushers the girl inside. 

Not a girl, really.  A young woman, tall and athletic, with short hair hanging around her face in ringlets. She is dressed in leather trousers, a leather jacket, and sturdy boots.  A jet-black helmet is tucked under one arm.  Spine straight, head held high, she has the stately composure of a queen. 

Memories crash over Sherlock.  Another girl, another case.  Searching in vain, growing dread snapping at his heels.  A body left in a skip, as if the person it had once been was no better than garbage. 

A shudder rolls down his arm and a bead of acid tumbles off the pipette tip to chew into the sitting table.

“Damn,” Sherlock hisses.  He sets the pipette to the glass bottle and ejects the rest of the acid.  Screws on the cap with shaking fingers. 

“Have I come at a bad time?” the young woman asks.

“No, I only—no,” says Sherlock. 

“Sherlock?”  John’s voice, accompanied by his footfalls.  “Was that Mrs. Hudson at the door?”

Sherlock casts about, finds a stray sheet of notebook paper, and uses it to cover the acid burn on the tabletop.  “Yes.  We have a client.”

A weary chuckle.  “Couldn’t have come sooner.  I know you’ve been going spare…”   John emerges into the sitting room.  His eyes land on the woman and his easy smile wavers. “Oh.  Hello.”

“Hello.” 

John’s eyes flick to the glass bottle.  “What’s in that?”

“Nothing,” Sherlock says, far too quickly.  He wills himself not to look at the sheet of paper, not to check for a telltale fume. 

John pins him with a suspicious look, but eventually he concedes and offers the client a hand.  “John Watson. Pleased to meet you, Miss…?”

She gives his hand a firm shake.  “Violet Smith.”  Uncertainty flickers through her eyes; she masters it, casts it aside.  “I need your help.  I… I think I may be in danger.” 

- 

The iron band grows tighter and tighter as Violet tells her story.

The facts are these:  Violet is an orphan, robbed of her parents when, on holiday in the Lake District, a drunk hurtled his truck into theirs on a rain-slick country road.  She was adopted by her uncle, Ralph Smith, who cared for her in place of the children he never had.  When Violet graduated from uni, Uncle Ralph hired her to work in his research lab developing pesticides.  He then boarded a plane bound for America, bent on faffing about on the wrong side of the pond.

“He found out he was sick a few months in,” says Violet.  “Lung cancer.  Very aggressive.”  Her lips thin into a bloodless line.  “He’s dead now.”

“So,” Sherlock surmises, “you’ve no family left.”

“No.  And the lab couldn’t get proper funding without Uncle Ralph, so I lost my job.” Violet balls her hands into fists on her lap.  “I—I needed money, so I started looking for work.  Nannying. Anyway, I found a job that offered twice the going rate to nanny for a man’s daughter.  They hired me on the spot.”

“Did you meet any other applicants?” Sherlock asks.

“No.” 

Sherlock raises his eyebrows.  “And you didn’t think that might be suspicious?  A lucrative job offer without a hint of competition?  A speedy hire?”

Violet looks at him, jaw set.  “I looked you up, Mr. Holmes, and with all due respect, I doubt you’ve ever had to pinch pennies.  You’ve probably never lived in an awful flat, never skipped a meal you didn’t want to. So yes, I took the job.  I needed to eat.”

Sherlock can think of nothing to say.  At his side, John moves fractionally closer, offering the comfort of proximity. 

“Go on, Ms. Smith,” he says.

Violet draws a slow breath and continues.  She had been a month in Carruthers’s employ when his business partner, Mr. Woodley, arrived at the house.  “He unnerved me.  Always getting a little too close, always finding excuses to touch me.  Casual touches, of course, but…”  She shivers.  “…they lingered.

“Then, one evening when I was getting my things together, he stopped me at the front gate.  Grabbed me.” Her hands uncurl, fingers moving restlessly.  “He was drunk.  Tried to kiss me, started saying filthy things.  Things he wanted to do to me.”

Violet decided to quit, notified Carruthers, and left without looking back. Days later, she noticed someone following her as she biked from job to job.  Following her, always keeping pace.  Stopping when she stopped.  Never uttering a word.

“I told him to leave me be,” says Violet, “but he kept following me. Close, but not close enough for me to turn around and catch him.”

“You think it’s Woodley,” says Sherlock.

A helpless shrug.  “I don’t know.  He kept his helmet on the whole time.  Who else could it be?”

The memories surge, overwhelming Sherlock’s senses.  A different case.  A different girl sitting across from him, looking to him for help.  A predator at the heart of the matter, and all the world his hunting ground.

When Sherlock speaks at last, his voice is flat.  Dead.  “You should call the police.  Let them deal with it.”

“I’ve already—”

Sherlock stands.   “Your case is dull.  I’m not interested.”  He strides past her, bellows down the stairwell, “Mrs. Hudson!  Please escort Ms. Smith out.”

“Sherlock,” John begins, rising to his feet.

“I am sorry that you took the time to come here,” says Sherlock, “but now you have to leave.  Good day, Ms. Smith.”

Violet stands, looking confused.  “Mr. Holmes, please—I don’t know where else to turn.  The police won’t listen—”

“I have a contact at the Yard,” says Sherlock.  He wants her to leave – leave and take the plague of memories with her. The longer she stays, the longer they burrow into him, spreading their poison to the marrow of his bones.  “I’ll give him your information.  He can help you.”

Violet’s shoulders slump.  Her veneer of courage crumbles, leaving raw fear in its place.  She says nothing, but dutifully writes down her mobile number, collects her helmet, and leaves. 

It is only when the front door to 221 shuts and the motorbike roars to life outside that John speaks.  “Sherlock.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”  Sherlock stalks over to the table and fetches up his pipette.  

“Sherlock.”  Gently, firmly.  “Please, love.”

Sherlock drags out his chair and sits at the table.  Picks up a pen and starts scrawling mindless circles into the nearest sheet of paper at hand.  Black chaos unfurls across the page.  Words bubble up his throat, bilious and foul.  An illness he has nursed for years.  “I can’t.”

John is quiet for a moment.  Then he moves to Sherlock’s side and kneels, places a hand on his knee. “Sherlock.  Violet Smith is not Lucy Ferrier.”

The pen stills, nib buried in a snarl of black.  The band around Sherlock’s heart tightens further. Threatens to splinter him.  “You don’t know that.”

“I do.”  John’s thumb rubs a circle over the jut of Sherlock’s kneecap.  “It’s… it’s possible that she could end up the same, yes.  But it isn’t certain.  Not yet.”

Sherlock swallows past a lump in his throat.  “I can’t fail like that again, John.”

“I know, love.  I know.” John climbs to his feet and pulls Sherlock into his arms.  Sherlock leans in his seat, rests his head against John’s chest.  The steady _ba-bump_ of his heartbeat reverberates through him like the pound of a war drum.  _Have courage._

“But this isn’t about us,” says John.  “It’s about Violet.”

 -

They contact Violet and agree to help her.  A trap is laid.  Violet will take her usual route to work.   Sherlock will follow at a discreet distance.  When the stalker joins Violet’s route, she will about-face and Sherlock, equipped with a rental bike, will cut off all escape routes.  A simple, effective plan. 

Until Violet fails to meet Sherlock at the appointed route. 

 _No, no, no._   The word races through Sherlock’s mind in an endless loop, running over itself and over itself until it becomes a meaningless noise.  Pure fear beating at the confines of his skull.  _No, no, no!_

Mind whirling, heart in his throat, Sherlock fishes out his mobile phone and rings John.  John answers and he starts to babble, half-shouting over the rumble of his motorbike. “She’s not here, she’s gone, I was too late—”

“Sherlock!  Listen. Listen to me.  Don’t lose your wits just yet.”

“She could be—”

“She might _not be.”_ John’s voice is all steel.  A soldier’s voice.  A voice for battle.  “Use that big brain of yours.  Solve it!”

Sherlock looks around the deserted expanse of Portsmouth Road.  Trees crowd close, the morning sunlight slanting skeletal shadows across the asphalt.  The air is crisp and fresh, the rising birdsong oblivious to Sherlock’s distress. “Where are you?”

“Just passed Claygate,” John says.  “Lestrade and the others are with me.  Sherlock, you have to hurry.  She needs us.”

“I can’t—”

“You can.”  John’s voice gentles.  “I know you can.”

And it’s completely illogical, it makes no sense at all.  But John’s conviction fuels Sherlock’s, settles the swirling tempest of his thoughts.  He looks around the road again.  Sifts through the irrelevant detritus and unearths the details, the facts.  Brushes them off, holds them up to the light.  A deduction snaps together.

“Oh,” Sherlock breathes.

“Knew you could do it.”  John’s voice is soft.  “Be careful, love.  We’ll be there soon.”

He rings off, and Sherlock shoves his mobile phone back in his pocket.  He seizes the handlebars of the motorbike, shifts into gear, and roars down the road, the throbbing growl of the throttle trailing in his wake. 

Last time, he had been too slow, too stupid.  He had failed, and Lucy had paid with her life.

He will not fail again.

Sherlock finds Violet’s bike a few miles down Portsmouth Road.  It has been dragged off the road and propped behind a stand of trees.  The front fender is dented, the headlight smashed.  The seat is smeared with blood.   

_No, no, no—I can’t, I can’t—_

He scans the scene, notes three sets of tire tracks.  One belongs to Violet; two are unaccounted for. Sherlock jumps back on the bike and keeps going.

He is scarcely a mile past the wrecked bike when a scream pierces the air: a raw, animal sound of pure horror, so loud it slices through the engine’s growl.  Sherlock pulls off of the road, dismounts, and sprints toward the sound.  Each hammering _thud_ of his pulse in his ears is a soundless cry.  A plea. 

_Don’t be dead.  Don’t be dying.  Hold on._

Sherlock tears through a narrow footpath and erupts into a clearing.  The trees form a semicircle, their leaves carpeting the soft earth. In the middle of the clearing, two men have Violet pinned to the ground, their backs to Sherlock.  One – a sneering man with a ginger mustache – holds Violet’s shoulder with one hand and brandishes a knife with the other.  The blade point hovers an inch from her eye. The second man crouches between her spread legs, struggling with her trousers.

Sherlock explodes into motion.  He is across the clearing in the space of a breath, hurling himself at the mustachioed man – _Woodley._   Sherlock snatches Woodley’s wrist and snaps it back, clearing the knife before they crash together.  They fall to the ground, the world spinning in a chaotic cartwheel of blue sky and tawny leaves.

Sherlock had the advantage of surprise, but Woodley reacts with surprising speed.  He digs in his heels and throws his weight forward, shoving Sherlock to the ground and punching the air from his lungs.  Sherlock’s grip on Woodley’s wrist slackens, and the blade scythes through the air toward him.

A shape hurtles toward Woodley, so swiftly Sherlock’s eyes can scarcely follow. The shape – the man – _John –_ slams into Woodley with a rugby tackle.  John carries him to the ground, draws back his arm, and punches Woodley with blurring speed. 

But Woodley still has the knife.

“John!” Sherlock shouts, a second too late.  Woodley throws up his free arm, fending off another punch.  He scrabbles John’s arm aside, lifts the blade, and plunges it toward John’s neck. 

Sherlock cannot move – cannot make a sound.  He can only stare, frozen by a terror greater than anything he has ever known. His perception narrows to the space between the knife and John’s pale, vulnerable throat. 

John twists at the last moment, shoves an open palm against Woodley’s knife hand.  The blow goes wide, glancing off John’s scalp.  Blood blooms in his hair and sheets down the side of his face.  John’s hand closes around Woodley’s wrist, and with a sudden, sharp motion, he twists.  Bones crunch and Woodley screams.  The knife slides from his hand to land, harmless, in the dirt.

Shouts fill the clearing.  Police officers pour through the trees, the cacophony of their voices joined by the wail of sirens.  Sherlock barely notices; all he can see is the blood.  Finding he can move, he stumbles to John’s side. 

“John.”  His voice is hoarse, as if he’s been screaming.  Has he been screaming?

Officers put Woodley in handcuffs and lead him away.  John sways to his feet.  Sherlock reaches out a hand to steady him. 

“Don’t think it’s serious,” says John.  He touches tentative fingers to the wound.  “Superficial.”

“Get your hands off me!” the other man cries. 

Bradstreet shoves him toward the police car with no pretense at civility. “I’d get a move on if I were you, Mr. Carruthers.”

“I did nothing wrong!” Carruthers protests.  “I love her!”

“Looks like abduction and attempted rape to me,” Bradstreet remarks.

“She wanted me to do it!  She was only being coy.  You know how women…”  He trails off, perhaps noticing, far too late, that Bradstreet is a woman.  His face flushes and he looks to Violet, standing shakily with Donovan’s support.  “I do love you, Violet!  You must believe me!”

Violet stares at Carruthers with empty eyes.  Her jacket has been torn off and her right arm is sleeved in blood from shoulder to elbow, but otherwise she appears unharmed. 

“That isn’t love, Mr. Carruthers,” says John, fury tense in the line of his jaw. The blood smeared across his temple makes him look fierce and vengeful, a war god come to strike down the unworthy. “It’s selfishness.”

Carruthers’s eyes flick to Sherlock and widen.  “I know you from the papers.  You’re the detective.  Sherlock Holmes.”  He glowers at John.  “Who the hell are you?”

“He’s my husband,” says Sherlock, proud as can be.  “And you’ve got it wrong, actually.  My name is Sherlock Watson-Holmes.” 

- 

Sherlock sees it, the moment before Donovan leads Violet to the police car. The young lady turns, her vacant eyes finding his, lips forming silent words.

_“Thank you.”_

 -

With Woodley and Carruthers behind bars, the rest of the case unravels in short order. 

Carruthers and Woodley both hail from America, where they worked for a prominent agricultural company.  Said company was the leader in pesticides across the nation – and they planned to stay that way, no matter the cost.

Ralph Smith, Violet’s uncle, had gone to one of the company’s top competitors with a newly-developed pesticide in hand.  Harmless to plants and people alike, and certain doom for any weed it touched, Smith’s product might have upheaved the agricultural industry in the United States with a single stroke. 

Then he got cancer.  And then he died.

And his last of kin – who had just so happened to work in his lab – was named the heir to everything he owned.  Including the rights to produce the pesticide.  How the agricultural company managed to conceal this information remains to be seen.  Sherlock can only hazard guesses – guesses as to Woodley and Carruthers’s intentions for Violet, guesses as to whether a company could find a way to give a man terminal cancer.  Much remains uncertain. 

But Violet Smith is alive and whole.  _That is what matters most._

The thought gives Sherlock pause.  Lying on the sofa in 221B, he opens his eyes and skews a look across the room.  John sits in his armchair, pecking diligently at his laptop.  A bandage is affixed to the side of his head, just off the squamous suture. 

“You were right,” he says. 

John looks up.  “Hmm?”

“What you said, when… when Lucy…”  Even now, the memory stings.  Sherlock presses onward.  “About me. You said I’d always cared, but I… I never let others see.  I might… try to rectify that.”  He waves vaguely.  “Ridiculous, but.  There it is.”

A smile tugs at the corner of John’s mouth.  “Could I please have that in writing?”

“Never.”

“Pity.”  A hum of consideration.  “Could I have something else, then?”

Sherlock nods.  John can have anything, everything.  Even Sherlock’s admission to feelings in writing, if he really wants it.

John closes his laptop and walks to the sofa, kneels.  Brushes his fingers over Sherlock’s brow.  “I’d like a ride on a motorbike with you.”

Sherlock is startled into a laugh.  “Oh, John.  I had no idea.”

“No idea that I would like you in leather, straddling a Harley?”  John smirks.  “The business of consulting detectives is in a sorry state.”

Sherlock drags him into a kiss to shut him up.  There is a bit of a tousle; John's laptop is almost dropped, but eventually they make their way to the sofa.  Pinned beneath John, Sherlock arches up his hips, gasping as the hardness of John's clothed cock ruts against his own.  His heart races as he slides his palms beneath John's jumper and rucks it up, tugging it over his head and tossing it to the floor.  The moment he is freed, John comes back to him, fierce and flushed and hungry, hands questing over his chest, down his waist.  Sherlock's lips part and John plunges his tongue inside, tasting each hitching breath.  

When they part, panting, Sherlock grins.  “I’ll give you a ride, Dr. Watson-Holmes.”

5. 

There is one feature of interest, and it is this: Molly had a misalliance with Lestrade. A scant three months later, they are married.

It is a perfectly nauseating affair, replete with roses of every gaudy hue, bridesmaids squeezed into yellow taffeta, and fairy lights strung all around. They don’t even have a proper venue, for God’s sake – the entire ceremony takes place outside, and the reception is in a _barn._  

(Actually, the barn is the wedding’s one redeeming quality.  As dusk falls and guests begin filing out, John, loose-limbed and grinning from one too many glasses of wine, takes Sherlock’s hand and leads him to the barn. It is dark, quiet, abandoned.  They fumble about until they find a staircase to an upper level, a ladder to a loft.  And then there is a great deal more fumbling, questing hands and bitten-off laughter, whispering huffs as their pulses accelerate, the clink as Sherlock discards John’s belt.  The soft moans, trapped behind John’s teeth, as Sherlock takes him in his mouth with a kind of half-drunk reverence.)

Six months after the wedding, Molly gives birth to a girl.  They call her Sophie.  Sherlock and John are chosen to be Sophie’s godparents.  John goes all dewy-eyed and wobbly at the pronouncement, utterly failing in his duty as an Englishman to keep that stiff upper lip. Sherlock manages, but only just. A part of him suspects Molly knows about his and John’s little barn tryst, and she is bequeathing godparent duties as punishment.

His eyes do water a little, at the baptism.  But that’s only because the church is abominably stuffy.  _Really, you’d think the Catholics could take better care of their imaginary God’s home._

When Sophie is six months old, Molly and Lestrade go out on a date – their first since her birth.  And, because godparents are apparently built-in sitters, Sophie is trusted to Sherlock and John’s care. 

Sophie is, objectively speaking, an angel.  Positively cherubic.

She is also a bloody _nightmare._

“John!” Sherlock bellows.  Bellowing is necessary because Sophie is wailing fit to bring the house down around them.  “John, help!”

John strides in, looking bemused.  “What’s this, then?”

Sherlock holds out the squirming, shrieking bundle of baby.  Her cries reach a deafening register and he shouts, “Take her!”

“Ah.”  John takes the wailing demon, settles her against his shoulder with one hand under her bottom, and begins swaying about like a drunk.  “There we are, love.  Come on. Ooh, hush now.”

Sophie’s crying eases and she gives a watery hiccup.  She beats a tiny fist against John’s shoulder and he chuckles. “Well, you want to see everything, don’t you?”

John turns Sophie around so her back rests against his shoulder and her doe-brown eyes rove around, fix on Sherlock.  Her lip wobbles.

“Best not let her look at me, John,” says Sherlock.  “She hates me.”

“Oh, stop.  You’re the one who keeps saying she doesn’t have a proper brain yet.”

“She hates me _mindlessly.”_

John heaves a sigh.  “And here I thought I was only looking after one baby.”

“Ha ha,” Sherlock deadpans.  He glances at Sophie, could swear he catches a mutinous glare.  “Look at her, John.  She despises me.”

“Honestly.”  Rolling his eyes, John turns toward the kitchen, maintaining the drunkard’s gait. “Let’s see what your mummy left you for dinner, shall we, Sophie?”

“Breast milk,” Sherlock supplies.  “If that comes as any surprise to her, she truly hasn’t got a brain.”

“Come on, love,” John tells Sophie.  “Let’s leave this cranky old man alone to stew while we get you a bite.”

Sherlock bristles, hot with jealousy; “love” is _his_ pet name.  And then he is hot with shame, because he’s jealous of a bloody infant.  _Good Lord._

The rest of the evening follows in much the same fashion – Sophie makes her displeasure at Sherlock known, and John conveniently ignores it.  When John hands her over and goads Sherlock into giving her the bottle, she turns away, face scrunched.  When John holds her around the waist and pantomimes walking her toward Sherlock, Sherlock can swear he sees her little heels dig in.  Sherlock is beginning to suspect that Sophie is less a combination of DNA than a mixture of Molly and Greg’s condensed annoyance at him over the years: honed to a snotty, wailing edge. 

But John – John is a marvel with Sophie.  He is besotted with her, crooning and coddling, tapping into a wellspring of patience that may never run dry.  No matter how loudly she cries, he never once grows annoyed.  Every time she fills her nappy – for a scrap of a thing, she produces a shocking amount of shit – John changes it with nary a complaint. All the while, he coos and smiles like he would be happier nowhere else on Earth.  It’s maddening.

And a little heartbreaking.

Sherlock sees it near the end of the evening, when John is coaxing Sophie to sleep.  They are on the sofa in the sitting room, lights dimmed.  Sherlock watches as John rocks the snuffling babe in his arms, lulling her with the motion of a ship at sea.  Sophie’s eyes are on John; she is utterly transfixed, and for once, Sherlock can agree with her.  Steeped in shadows, his voice low and rasping, John exudes an aura of competent calm. Safety. 

Sophie’s eyes drift shut.  John smiles down at her, soft and fond.

The sight hits Sherlock under the ribs.  Steals his breath.

Later – days later, long after Sherlock and John return to Baker Street and life returns to some semblance of normalcy – Sherlock returns from a day at Bart’s to find John on the sofa, curled around a book.   Outside, the sky is bruised with clouds, the air heavy with a coming storm. 

John doesn’t look up from his book, but as the door shuts, he says, “Fancy Vietnamese tonight.  What d’you think?”

A noncommittal hum.  Sherlock hangs his coat on its peg and kicks off his shoes.  Crossing the room, he takes a seat beside John and slumps into the cushions with a sigh. 

“Sherlock?”

“Hmm?”

“Your thoughts.  On dinner.”

“Oh.”  Sherlock shrugs and glances at John.  John is mid-way through _His Dark Materials,_ an impulse purchase on a case in Oxford.  He is dressed in a button-up and trousers – hasn’t changed since his shift at the clinic – but his shoes are off, his woolen sock-clad feet folded beneath him on the sofa. 

Sherlock tugs at John’s feet and John complies without a word, stretching his legs and shifting his hips so his feet rest in Sherlock’s lap.  Fingers toying with a woolen toe, Sherlock says, “You choose.”

John begins to turn a page.  “I’ve got a craving for Pho.”

“Do you want children?”

John’s hand stills mid-turn.  For a long moment, he is still as stone.  Then his head snaps up, eyes wide.  “What?”

Sherlock’s hands are starting to shake.  He presses a thumb to the arch of John’s foot, kneading, soothing.  (Himself or John, he cannot say.) “Children.”  The word sticks in his throat.  “Do you… want them?”

John looks apprehensive.  Guilt twists in Sherlock’s gut; he should have known better than to ask.  They have been married for four years, and never once has John brought up children.  After everything that happened with Mary, with the baby, touching on the subject is like sawing apart fresh sutures. 

John marks his place in the book and sets it aside.  Outside, thunder rumbles in low concert with Sherlock’s drumming pulse.  When John answers, his voice is vanishingly soft.  “Do you?” 

Sherlock says nothing.  He has never considered children as something he might have; the concept is completely alien to him.  Children are fragile.  Vulnerable. And Sherlock is—well.  Sherlock is careless.  He runs roughshod on people’s feelings.  He sometimes forgets to sleep and eat.  He bolts into danger without a thought for the consequences.  He would make an awful parent.

But John… John might want children.  He might want the chance to be a father.  The chance to have what had been stolen from him, a lifetime ago.

“I… I don’t know,” says Sherlock.  “I hadn’t thought it possible, before…” 

Sherlock trails off.  He skims his fingers over the top of John’s foot, memorizing the warmth of his skin encased in wool, the winging architecture of metatarsals and phalanges. He wants all of John.  If John wants to be a father, Sherlock will want that, too.

“I don’t know, sometimes.”  John says it like a confession.  “I’m sorry I can’t give you a simple answer.”

“You’re my husband,” Sherlock whispers.  “I want you to be happy.”

“Sherlock.”  John reaches out, snares Sherlock’s fingers in his.  His feet find the floor as he sits upright and leans in close.  “I am happy.  I am ridiculously, incandescently, impossibly happy.  Half the time, I think I’m going to wake up from the best dream of my life and frankly?  The thought terrifies me.”

Sherlock blinks, thrown by the vehemence in his words.  “I… I’m the same.”

John’s mouth works.  “Well, then. You understand.”

“Yes.”

“I _am_ happy.  I’ve got you.”  His fingers loosen their iron grip and he leans closer, brushes the arch of Sherlock’s cheekbone.  Twines his fingers in Sherlock’s hair.  “For so long, I didn’t think I could have you like this.”

“You have me,” says Sherlock.  His throat is painfully tight.

John pulls him down, kisses him with a softness that makes Sherlock’s heart hurt.  It’s horridly unfair that John is the one always caring, always mending.  He has weathered so much pain and loss.

They part, resting foreheads together.  “I want to take care of you,” Sherlock murmurs.

John’s thumb brushes under his eye, feather-light.  “We’ll take care of each other, just the two of us.  For now.”

Raindrops patter at the window.  The smell of iron fills the air.  

+1

Sherlock Watson-Holmes is a man who abhors clichés. 

As a genius and the inventor of his own profession, Sherlock believes firmly that clichés are the standby of the idiot masses – excuses for a lack of creativity.  When people try to lecture him with such banalities, he restricts himself to cutting remarks with a considerable force of will. 

So, when Mrs. Hudson tells him, “Marriage is hard work,” he dismisses her out of hand. 

Marriage, as it happens, is hard work. 

Marriage is seeing ill-contained anger in the line of John’s shoulders and knowing that, sometimes, the best recourse is to let him be.  Marriage is getting lost in his own head in the middle of an experiment, losing track of time, missing an important date – and the bruised look on John’s face, swiftly concealed.  Marriage is the sour guilt that fills Sherlock’s mouth every time John wakes in the night, shaking, eyes wild, and startles to see Sherlock beside him.  He never says it, but Sherlock knows.  In John’s nightmares, Sherlock is falling. Breaking against the pavement. Shot in the heart. 

There is so much guilt between Sherlock or John.  On one side, there are lies; on the other, a woman and her Walther PPK.  Sometimes the guilt feels like a mountain, impassable, immovable.  But marriage is work.  Sherlock and John are always climbing. 

Sometimes – just sometimes – Sherlock loses his footing.

It happens on a case in Scotland.  A lawyer, Mr. Hector McFarlane.  A victim, Jonas Oldacre, whose will was amended to make McFarlane the sole beneficiary to everything he owned.  A corpse outside Oldacre’s home in Inverness, charred beyond recognition. A court order extracting the location of McFarlane’s mobile phone from his MePhone data – one that revealed McFarlane’s phone to be at Oldacre’s home right around the time forensics determined the body was set aflame. 

In short, Hector McFarlane looks a very guilty man. 

But something about the case nags at Sherlock – it seems too cut-and-dry, too _neat._   The cleanliness stings, scouring and astringent, like bleach slopped over a floor ridden with dry-rot.  The planks may be clean, but they aren’t fit to stand on.

That sense of disquiet prompted Sherlock to take McFarlane’s case. Without giving himself time to question it – time to doubt the sentiment worming through the logic, the data he has only just started to trust – Sherlock purchased two train tickets to Inverness. 

John was surprisingly excited about the whole affair.  For such a reserved man, he was eager to talk about his time in Scotland – visiting his grandparents in Edinburgh, of his grandad regaling him and Harry with stories, tales of warm hearths and ghosts on windswept knolls.  Seated across from John, Sherlock was enraptured by his husband as the flat land gave way to rolling hills and jutting crags.  The Scottish Highlands unfolded in all their epic grandeur, and Sherlock was blind to all of it.

“Pepper says she would be able to meet with us for dinner,” John added, somewhere between tangents.  “If we have some time while working on the case…”

“Yes,” said Sherlock.  “Of course.”

John smiled.

The following day and a half were an exercise in futility.  After arriving and leaving their belongings at the inn, Sherlock and John went to meet the police – headed by the venerable DI Ferguson – at the crime scene.  Ferguson, briefed on Sherlock’s methods by Lestrade, had been amicable, if a trifle put-upon.  In his mind, McFarlane was already behind bars. 

Something about the DI’s certainty nettled Sherlock.  It wasn’t smugness, not exactly – Ferguson knew what he was about. No, it was that insidious strain of _sentiment._ Somehow, between taking McFarlane’s call and meeting the lawyer in custody – a young, whey-faced man, aglow with potential and terrified of the axe hanging over his head – Sherlock’s misgivings had calcified into conviction.  McFarlane couldn’t be guilty.  It was an impossible deduction, completely unfounded.  And it had to be true.

But no matter how Sherlock bent his mind to the case, he could not tease apart the threads of detail and isolate a single strand of truth.    All the evidence pointed to McFarlane’s guilt.  Sherlock felt himself caught in the inescapable pull of his own certainty, one that dragged him past cold facts and pure data, past a boundary horizon and into a realm where belief alone ruled.  He knew McFarlane was innocent, and he could not escape.

John saw his frustration – John saw everything.  He tried to help.  Tried to comfort.  Tried to distract Sherlock from the encroaching gloom with tales of his childhood, promises to acquire a kilt, offers of a roll in the heath.  Small, silly platitudes.  Sherlock loved him for them, but the gloom still hovered on the periphery of his mind, threatening to devour him. 

On the morning of the second day, Sherlock is ruminating on the case when John strides out of the bedroom, dressed in a dinner suit with his hair pushed into a sleek sweep.  “Sherlock? Are you almost ready?”

Sherlock gives a noncommittal grunt.  John crosses to the sofa and kneels in front of Sherlock, drifting his fingers over the knob of his knee.  Sherlock blinks out of his reverie.

John cocks his head.  “Wearing that to meet my agent, are we?”

Sherlock glances down at his clothes:  a ratty t-shirt and threadbare sweatpants.  He had promised to be ready by six, but time must have slipped away from him.  “Ah.  I was, er.  Just about to change.”

“Please.”  John reaches out, threads his fingers through Sherlock’s curls.  He tugs Sherlock down and captures his mouth in a kiss that is edged with want and tempered by great restraint:  _later._  

John draws back and smiles.  “I can’t wait to show you off.”

Sherlock blinks, dazed by the force of the kiss.  “I… I thought you were the one on display tonight.”

John puffs up a little, and Sherlock’s heart stutters.  It is wonderful to see him like this: filled with pride, intoxicated by the potency of his own success.  John wears confidence like a finely-tailored suit, but so often he is relegated to the wings of Sherlock’s stage.  He never complains, never competes.  Even now, he is stealing a moment in the spotlight from the case.  Sherlock wishes he could give John more.

He stands, fingers still interlocked with John’s.  “I’ll change.”

John stands with him, scrubs the back of his neck.  His grin is boyish.  “Black shirt, maybe, and matching jacket.”

Sherlock raises a brow.  “Making demands, are you?”

“Just thinking about what I’d like to see you in tonight.”  John bites the inside of his cheek, but his gaze is direct, a molten brand.  “And what I’d like to take off you.  Later.”

Sherlock wears the black shirt and matching jacket.  Marriage is about compromise, after all.  

-

“I am _so thrilled,_ John, really, I am. So thrilled.”

John’s agent – _Pepper,_ a large thirty-something with a violently pink pixie cut – beams as she sets down her glass and props her elbows on the table.  The faintest trace of a Scottish brogue colors her voice – picked up from her new husband, no doubt.  “And I’m doubly pleased you went to the effort to come and discuss the book in person. I know my move has been inconvenient for your work.”

John takes a swig of his beer and shakes his head.  Around their table, the pub is alive with voices raised in laughter and conversation that promises to become bawdier as the night progresses. “Lucky that we had a case to investigate, really.  It’s no trouble.”

“This is a fantastic first publisher, you know.  Brilliant that you had the blog ahead of time, that you and Sherlock,” a nod in Sherlock’s direction, “had already drummed up so much press.”

“Honestly, I’m happy anyone wants to publish it at all,” John says, lifting his glass.  Sherlock watches as his throat bobs with a swallow.  “It’s all a bit… surreal, still.”

Pepper waves off his unspoken doubt like she would a gnat.  “Please.  A book of your adventures with Sherlock Holmes?  People have been waiting for this.  Especially now that you’ve got rid of all the dry bits.”

John tenses.  Sherlock’s attention jumps to Pepper.  “The what?”

She colors.  “Oh, I. Well, it was the publisher’s idea that John… edit some pieces.  Shorten them up.”

“What pieces?” Sherlock asks, eyes narrowing. 

Pepper fidgets, looking anywhere but at Sherlock.  She darts out a hand, turns her sweating glass ‘round on the table, leaving a smeared ring.  “It’s… it’s only…”

“The publisher wanted me to tidy up your deduction explanations,” John says. He sets down his fork and shoots Sherlock an apologetic look.  “I’m sorry. I should have mentioned that earlier.”

Sherlock stares at him, gut-punched.  When John had first mentioned the book, he had been apprehensive. Giving in to the romanticism of the blog, letting a publishing house produce a look at the Work through a distorted lens: all fantasy and no science, no concrete explanation of the profession Sherlock had invented and dedicated his life to.  John had picked up on his reservations and assured Sherlock that each case would pay close attention to Sherlock’s methods, abbreviated though they may be.  Sherlock had agreed, reluctantly, and was surprised to find himself recruited as John’s “Science of Deduction Expert.”

Even more surprising had been the realization that he enjoyed it – really, truly enjoyed it.  The science was nowhere near as specific as he would have liked, but it was enough for anyone with more than a passing interest to learn from.  He had even been _excited_ to publish the book.

“How much did you remove?” Sherlock demands.

Pepper seems to shrink into her seat.  “Well… most of it.  The publisher thought it might be too…”

“Sherlock.”  John lays a hand over his curled fist, thumb rubbing at the tension between his knuckles. “I really am sorry.  I should have told you, but…”

“But what?” Sherlock says, rounding on him.  “But you forgot?  Forgot to mention the small matter of cutting out the _dry bits_ I had dedicated a year and a half to helping you write?”

John’s jaw tightens.  “I know it isn’t ideal, but—but I’d hoped you could understand.  The publishing house—”

“Sod them,” Sherlock snaps.  “They don’t care about the science, the Work – they only want to mass-produce some silly, over-romanticized drivel.  And you’ve gone and let them do it.”

John sits back, pain flashing across his face.  His hand slips away from Sherlock’s fist, and Sherlock has scarcely an instant to feel guilt clot in the pit of his belly before his mobile phone trills.  He lifts it from the table, relieved to see Ferguson’s name flashing above a text. “Case.  And it couldn’t have come sooner.”

A scowl masks the hurt on John’s face.  “Sherlock—”

“It’s the Work, John.”  Sherlock brandishes his mobile phone like a badge.  Without sparing the agent a glance, he says, “Sorry, Pepper.  Got to dash.  I’m sure you and John can get on perfectly fine without me.  Just like the book.”

He stands, chair scraping, and strides out with John calling after him. The sound of his husband’s voice dwindles as he shoves open the front door and steps into the cool night air, swallowed by the alien landscape of Inverness.  The pub sits on the edge of the River Ness, offering a twilit view of the city: swathes of rose and violet smearing across the sky, playing over the sinuous form of the water.  In the distance, churches squat beside tidy row houses, their spires black against the lurid canvas above. 

Sherlock dithers on the curb for a moment before providence sweeps past in the form of a taxi.  He hails it, climbs inside, and whisks off down the street. 

Twenty minutes later, he arrives at Oldacre’s house on the edge of Bunchrew. He pays the fare, disembarks, and walks toward the glittering discord of police lights.  The fury that propelled him out of the restaurant has banked, smoldered down to hot embers of guilt.  Shame fills his mouth with the taste of ashes. 

DI Ferguson greets Sherlock with a hearty clap on the shoulder, startling him. The tree-bark crags of his face pinch in confusion when he sees Sherlock is alone.  “Where’s your better half, then?”

“In a meeting.”  Sherlock doesn’t elaborate, and Ferguson has enough sense to cut straight to the case.

“Found new evidence,” he drawls as they walk toward Oldacre’s house.  The building perches on the edge of a slight rise in the earth, its rooftop looming over the surrounding trees.  Sherlock is reminded of a fairy tale John once told him – of a witch who lived in a cottage with legs, allowing her to hunt for wayward children in her forest from the comfort of home.  A silly story, really, but Sherlock tastes the grit of guilt and banishes the thought. 

“McFarlane’s MePhone app had previously traced a trail to the stream.” Ferguson points down the slope, where an offshoot of the Kinlea Burn flows, placidly unaware of the havoc wreaked on its banks.  “Didn’t find anything the first time around, but upon closer inspection, we found this.” He fishes an evidence bag from his pocket and hands it to Sherlock.

A signet ring rests in the bag, dull in the low light.  Sherlock squints to make out the crest – an ornate rendering of the letter  _M._

“McFarlane family crest,” Ferguson supplies.  “Confirmed it from Hector McFarlane’s mum, Ella.  Doesn’t get much more solid than this.”

But Sherlock is staring at the signet ring, mind racing, elation blossoming in his chest to push the air from his lungs.  He is flying high on the rush of a deduction, a whirling dervish of clues linking together to lead to an inevitable conclusion. 

Sherlock scoured this very bank not two days ago, and there had been no signet ring.  That evidence had been planted.  McFarlane is being framed.   

Sherlock returns the bag to Ferguson’s care.  The moment the DI is waylaid by an officer with some sort of report, Sherlock slinks off toward the house.  He doesn’t spare a glance at the charred spot in the grass where the corpse once lay – not the corpse of Oldacre at all.  Possibly not even human.  He can wait to see forensics’ verdict, but for now…

Sherlock steals inside and races down the stairs to the basement.  On the first sweep of the house, officers found kerosene canisters for the derelict heater.  Sherlock seizes a canister, sloshing it to make sure he has enough, and bolts upstairs.  His mind whirls, thoughts pinned to a specific corridor, to the wall at the end. A false wall.  He would stake his life on it.

Police lights wink outside, slanting through windows to flicker against the walls.  Sherlock climbs to the first level of the house, rounds a corner.  He rummages through his pockets for his lighter, unscrews the cap of the canister.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he mutters, and tips the canister. Kerosene glugs across the floorboards in a stinking stream.  When the canister is empty, Sherlock sets it aside and takes a few steps back.  He flips the switch on the lighter and tosses it to the floor.

A loud _bang_ cracks through the quiet the instant before the flames soar up from the floor in a rolling, scorching wave. The false door has been thrown open and a figure races into the corridor, eyes wild with fear.  He tears through the wall of fire like a madman and barrels into Sherlock.  The two go down to the floor with twin cries of shock.  Oldacre.  _Alive._

Sherlock tries to shove Oldacre off, but the man must know he has no chance of escape.  Though well into his sixties, he fights with the ferocity of a cornered bear, desperate to drag someone down with him. He shoves Sherlock’s hand aside and levels a punch at his face.  Pain erupts as the back of Sherlock’s head cracks against the floorboards.  Blood fountains from his nose and his vision goes white.

An incoherent shout joins the fray and a small figure darts through Sherlock’s peripheral vision:  John. With a perfectly-aimed blow, he knocks Oldacre off Sherlock, keeping a grip on the old man’s shirt collar to hammer a punch into his teeth.  Oldacre staggers back, blood dripping down his chin. 

Sherlock blinks past the spots in his vision and climbs to his feet, swaying. The flames are growing fast, climbing the walls and advancing over the floorboards with startling speed.  Smoke fills the air.  Each breath is a stinging, lung-crushing labor.  The screams of a fire alarm fill the air. 

“Turn yourself in,” John shouts.  “It only gets worse for you from here, Oldacre!”

Jonas Oldacre’s grizzled face transforms into an animal mask of hatred. He seems insensate to the fire consuming his house, the tongues scorching through his clothes to lick at his skin. “It can’t get any worse.”

He charges before John has time to react, ready to grapple.  John tenses – but then the ceiling groans, sags.  A chunk of burning wood peels off and topples down, down to crack across John’s fragile skull.

Sherlock is sprinting across the space in a heartbeat, shoving John aside. The board slams into his shoulder with an awful crunching noise, then bounces off and spins to the floor in an arc of fire.  Sherlock stumbles into Oldacre’s charge, pain blotting out his senses, his arm limp at his side. 

 _“Sherlock!”_ John bellows. 

But Oldacre is upon him, slamming him to the floor and wrapping his hands around his throat.  Sherlock stumbles, eyes streaming, each breath a gasp.  His vision blurs so Oldacre and the surrounding flames melt into a demonic chimera.  The hands at his throat tighten, bending cartilage and vessel and bone.

John hurtles toward Oldacre with an inhuman cry.  He strikes the old man on the back of the head with something Sherlock cannot quite make out: something blockish, burning.  A piece of the board.  Oldacre folds after a second blow and faints after a third.  He slumps off of Sherlock and John throws the board aside with a wince.  He rushes to Sherlock’s side. 

“Up,” he says.  He winds Sherlock’s arm over his shoulder and levers him to his feet. 

“Oldacre,” Sherlock croaks. 

“Fuck him.”

“John—”

Shouts fill the corridor.  Firefighters race up the stairs, masks obscuring their faces.  John points toward Oldacre’s prone form without a word and drags Sherlock down the stairs, his strength brooking no argument.  Each step groans and threatens to break beneath them.  The ceiling creaks, buckles.  Sherlock can see nothing for the smoke.  He lets himself be led, stumbling after John.

“You’re going to be okay.”  John’s voice seems very far away.  “Sherlock, love…”

They spill through the doorway and into the open air.  Firefighters swarm them, drag them away from the blaze. 

“Hospital,” John rasps as they are half-led, half-dragged toward a waiting ambulance.  “Needs hospital.  Arm dislocated – maybe broken.”

Paramedics join them outside the ambulance.  One – a young man, pockmarked and pale – points to John.  “Get him an oxygen mask.  The other one goes to hospital.”

Sherlock feels his legs turn to jelly, as if the confirmation of his sorry state has robbed him of his remaining strength.  Paramedics guide him to a stretcher.  The sky above spins, starlight streaming together as a mask is fitted onto his face.  

“I’m coming, too.”  John’s voice is exhausted but resolute.

As Sherlock is loaded into the ambulance and John makes to follow, the paramedic raises a hand.  “Sorry, family only.”

John glares at him.  “He’s my husband, you wanker.  Get out of my way.”

The paramedic goes white.  Poor thing. Really has no idea who he is trifling with, though clearly he has the sense to know the danger in which he’s just placed himself.  He gives an audible gulp and offers John a hand.

John ignores the gesture and climbs into the back without help.  Settling in beside Sherlock, he surveys the paramedics and EMTs with a dark look.  “Well, what the fuck are you waiting for?” 

-

Sherlock wakes in a bed that is not his, in a room that is sterile and white. Monitors beep and whirr beside him. An IV stands nearby, dripping steadily into a tube that needles into the crook of his arm.  Everything is muzzy, woolen.

He is in hospital.  Beside his bed, a chair sits empty.  Sherlock reaches for the call light.  Pain flowers down his right shoulder, prickles through his arm where it lays braced against his chest.

The door swings open and John walks in, a Styrofoam cup in one hand and a book in the other.  The wrinkles beneath his eyes have deepened into grooves shadowed by a sleepless night. Sherlock thinks of his own cutting words, of the pain on John’s face. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, or tries to say.  His voice is a scrape of sandpaper.

John stiffens, water sloshing out of the cup. “Sherlock!”

He hurries to Sherlock’s bedside and sets the book on a nightstand.  His hand comes around Sherlock’s, holding tightly. Bandages swathe his palms; he has burns from the board used to fell Oldacre.  Sherlock strokes his thumb over the porous fibers, mournful.

He tries again.  “I…”

“Here,” says John, offering the cup.  The water is a cool, blessed relief on his throat.

“Thank you,” Sherlock mumbles.

John sets the cup aside.  “How are you feeling?”

A wince.  “Sore.” A pause.  “You?”

“I’ll manage.  The burns are second-degree, so I… I might have some scars, but.”  He shrugs.  “Suppose I’m used to that.”

He offers a forced smile.  Guilt rakes its claws over Sherlock’s heart.  “I… I’m so sorry, John.”

Confusion shades across John’s face.  “What, for going after Oldacre without backup?  For starting a bloody fire when you could’ve talked to Ferguson instead?”

“No—”  He sees storm clouds gathering, hastily amends, “Yes… But also.  The book.  I shouldn’t have—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Sherlock.”  John rolls his eyes.  “You could have died!  Oldacre would have fought until you both burned or suffocated, and you’re worried about a book?  A sodding _book?”_

“Your book,” Sherlock says.

John goes quiet for a moment.  Then, solemnly, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the edits.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It _does._ Those ‘dry bits’ were important to me, too.  You helped me write them.”

“Your book isn’t drivel, John.”  It is suddenly imperative that Sherlock edit his own words, replace them with something finer, sweeter.  Something worthy of John.  “Your, your book is a marvel.  Better than…” He pauses, rummages through his mind for all those writer fellows John keeps blathering about.  “Shakespeare.”

“I was wondering when your meds would kick in,” John muses.  “There’s my answer.”

“Better than Oscar Wilde, or that—that other chap.  The mustachioed one.”

“All right, that’s enough.”  But a smile is fighting past the weariness on John’s face, and Sherlock will give not an inch.

“I _do_ think it could be improved,” he says, “in one respect.”

John looks at him, eyes dancing.  “Oh?”

“If you included one of those… special pieces.”  Sherlock waggles his eyebrows, all pretense at gravity gone. “The ones you write only for me.”

John _does_ laugh, then – a startled bark, dissolving into giggles as he covers his mouth. “Um, no.  No.  I don’t think the publisher would be too keen on that.”

“Find someone else.  Someone who can appreciate both the science _and_ the smut.”

“No, you madman.”  The giggles fade and the quality of John’s smile changes – softens.  It almost seems shy.  “I do plan on sorting out the first thing, though.”

He turns to the nightstand and picks up the book.  The look on his face is carefully neutral as he offers it to Sherlock:  a paperback, its glossy cover patterned by a design that is noticeably similar to the geometric motif papering the walls of 221B.  The words “ADVANCED READER COPY – COVER NOT YET FINALIZED” adorn the bottom. 

At the top, the title simply reads _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes._

“This copy went out before we were told to make cuts,” says John.  “Some of the reviewers didn’t care for the deduction work, but…”  He shrugs. “Sod them.  I’m going to tell the publisher I want to keep it.”

Touched as he is, Sherlock cannot contain his misgivings.  “But…”

“I’m not budging on this, Sherlock,” says John.  “If they don’t want to publish, that’s fine.  We can give back the advance.  Hell, we could probably sell a few copies online.  To fans.”  He shrugs. “I’ll feel a bit bad for Pepper, but in the end, it’s only a book.  Whether it gets published or not, we’ll get on with it.”

Sherlock takes the proffered book, flips past the first few pages.  He stops on the dedication page.

_To Sherlock – the love of my life and the greatest adventure I will ever know._

Sherlock’s throat clots.  Good Lord, the pain meds really are out of control.  He clears his throat, searches for a scrap of dignity.  Can’t seem to find it.  _Oh, to hell with it._

He rests the book in his lap and looks at John with bleary eyes.  “I love you.”

John says nothing for a moment, just – watches.  As if committing Sherlock to memory, as if afraid he might vanish.  The thought dislodges a cold stone of clarity, sends it tumbling down to weigh in Sherlock’s gut. 

_Oh._

John scoots forward in his seat, reaches out.  His fingers are light against Sherlock’s temple, threading through his hair.  “I love you, too.  So much. Sherlock, you can’t—you can’t even know. Sometimes I’m terrified by how much I love you.”

“I’m always terrified.”  Sherlock says it quietly. 

John brings his face close to Sherlock’s, and the rest of the world falls away.  “I don’t care about the book.  I care about _you._   And if—if you keep running off to face danger without me, if you go somewhere I can’t reach—”

Sherlock grips John’s wrists.  “I won’t—I will try.  I swear, John, I’ll try to—I won’t go…”

Words lose their meaning, eroding as lips meet.  The kiss is brief, hard, desperate.  The beeping of the monitors kicks into a sprint.  Then John pulls away with a hard exhalation, eyes downcast.  They lean their foreheads together and stay that way for the space of several breaths. 

“Promise me, love,” John murmurs.

“I promise.”  A vow, an oath.  A lifelong pact.  He brushes a tender thumb below the bandage, seeking the pulse at John’s wrist.  “I promise.” 

- 

Sherlock is discharged from hospital later that day.  With the case closed and Oldacre in custody, Sherlock and John roam the misty streets of Inverness, hands clasped as their footsteps fall quiet against the pavement.  Between the breaths of a city at work and over the gentle murmur of the River Ness, John tells tales of ghosts startling mute girls to speech, of water horses luring peasants into the deep places of the lochs, of priests and kings.  Sherlock listens, spellbound.

DI Ferguson rings Sherlock to arrange a meeting.  They arrive at a pub on the north side of the city to find the DI seated at a table beside a wary, haggard-looking Hector McFarlane.  Ferguson is his usual no-nonsense self, though he avoids looking at the redeemed lawyer.   Sherlock thinks he sees guilt shadowing the crags of the DI's face, but he makes no comment.

"Mr. McFarlane," Ferguson begins, and McFarlane stiffens, knuckles white around the handle of his stein.  Ferguson's lips twist.  "Why don't you tell our friends what we learned about Jonas Oldacre."  It isn't a question, but a command.  "It's partially your story, after all."

McFarlane nods once, tense.  "W-well.  It seems that Mr. Oldacre knew my mum, when they were young.  They... they were engaged to be married."  He blinks, wide-eyed, as if he can scarcely believe his own words.  "Then my mum realized Oldacre was not the man she thought he was.  He was... cruel.  Killed small animals for sport.  Textbook psychopath, apparently."  He shakes his head, lifts his drink for a swig.  He clears his throat and continues.  "She left him, met my dad, and... the rest was history, I suppose."

Sherlock sees the shape of the story unfolding before him.  "Oldacre was punishing your mother for leaving him by targeting you."

 McFarlane shrugs in disbelief.  "It's mad, isn't it?  I'd never heard of the man before he asked me to draw up the will.  But he confessed to the whole thing.  Said he'd been plotting my downfall for years."  He shakes his head, takes another drink.  "I'd never  _heard_ of the man," he repeats.  "Never done anything to him.  And here he was, planning to take my life apart."

"And the signet ring?" Sherlock presses.

"Oldacre nicked it when I went to amend his will," McFarlane explains.  "Then it was only a matter of asking my mum to confirm it was mine."

"How is your mother coping with all of this?" John asks.

McFarlane sighs.  "She's... a little shaken up.  I think she thought she was rid of him for good.  But!"  He injects a forced dose of levity into his tone.  "Bastard's behind bars now, so I suppose we're all rid of him."

"Good riddance," Ferguson says, raising his stein as if in a toast.  Both the DI and the lawyer drink to that.

Sherlock watches the pair with a sense of disquiet.  He looks to John, seeking the understanding he knows he will find - and find it he does.  John's eyes are dark, lips drawn into a thin line.  A pattern takes place: a path paved in the lives of the weak, the small.  The victimized.  A path well-trodden by those who feel entitled to take and take without a thought for the consequences.  It began with Lucy Ferrier, continued with Violet Smith, and now ends with Hector McFarlane and his mum, Ella.  

There is a glimmer of good amidst the news, however.  The charred corpse Oldacre used to frame McFarlane was not human.  Blackened beyond recognition, it had taken forensics time to isolate usable DNA and make the analysis.  Bovine, young - killed and twisted past comprehension by mallet and flame.  Oldacre may be a psychopath, but as of yet, he is not a murderer.  

"At least there's that," John concludes, later, as they walk down the street.  His hand is tucked into the crook of Sherlock's braced arm, gentle but tethering.  

Sherlock is still unsettled.  "He held that grudge for  _decades,_ John.  He nursed that... that hate deep inside for over half of his life."  Cancerous, consuming.  

John is quiet for a little while.  When he does speak, his words are measured with care.  "What Oldacre did was horrible, yes.  I will never defend a man who thinks he can monopolize someone's life with his rage.  But..."  He trails off, chews on his lip.  "I think I could understand it.  Being so broken you can't think of anything besides your own hurt."

Sherlock waits, reminding himself to breathe.  John so rarely talks about his pain; he prefers to leave it in the dark, to cover his scars and pretend they don't exist.  They appear in moments of anger, lapses in judgement.  Never deliberately. 

Sherlock covers John's hand with his own and John smiles, thankful.  "I'm... I'm very lucky I have you.  I don't like to think of who I would be, otherwise."

Though he does not say it, Sherlock feels the same.  He brushes his thumb over the bandage on John's hand, trusting that will convey his thoughts.  They continue down the street until they are swallowed by the cool mists of Inverness.

-

After two weeks of negotiation, the publishing company agrees to keep the Science of Deduction in John’s book.  The fame of Sherlock and John Watson-Holmes is not a force to be reckoned with. 

John saves the manuscript on his laptop – an easy target.  The moment he leaves for a shift at the clinic, Sherlock has the laptop out and the file open. 

He makes one edit, and one alone.  It’s a shot in the dark, a leap of faith.  The publishing house might throw a tantrum.  They might call John demanding he rein in his recalcitrant husband. They might reject it out of hand, delete it and publish the book without a word of its existence.

Sherlock decides it’s worth the risk.

He navigates to the title page and sets his fingers to the keys.  It’s only three words, after all.  Three words:  his world entire.

_The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson._

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for: attempted sexual assault, non-explicit sex, and violence.
> 
> The title comes from the notion of a hope chest, i.e. what unmarried women would use to keep clothing, linens, and so on for when they were married - things to bring into their "new life." Apparently the UK term for this is the "bottom drawer," so there you have it.


End file.
